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Who's In the Room Explained: Who Touches Your Money Before You Do? | Canadian Investing · How Canadian Markets Work

0:00
I want you to just take a moment to imagine something
0:03
for a second. You're sitting on your couch, you
0:06
get your phone in your hand, and you're just
0:07
looking at a stock. Setting the scene. Exactly.
0:11
You've done a little reading, you kind of like
0:12
the company, and you decide to buy, say, 100
0:16
shares. So you tap the screen, the button turns
0:18
green, a little confirmation message pops up,
0:21
boom, done. I mean, it feels so incredibly simple,
0:25
right? It feels like it's just you, your phone,
0:28
and the stock market. It really does, but that
0:31
feeling of seamlessness, it's entirely engineered.
0:34
It's this very carefully constructed illusion,
0:38
honestly, designed to make you comfortable. And
0:41
that beautiful, smooth illusion is exactly what
0:43
we are dismantling today. Welcome back to our
0:46
deep dive into how Canadian markets work. Yes,
0:49
welcome. This is episode three, and our focus
0:51
today is titled, Who's in the Room? Our mission
0:54
is to really crack open the wall and gently examine
0:57
the actual plumbing of the Canadian financial
1:01
system. Because it's quite the system. It is.
1:03
We're unpacking a really comprehensive stack
1:06
of source notes today, detailing exactly who
1:09
is in the room when your capital moves. Because
1:11
when you tap that buy button, it's perfectly
1:14
natural to assume the trade involves... maybe
1:16
two or three entities like you, your brokerage
1:18
app, and an exchange. Right. But the reality
1:21
is just far more crowded. There are a minimum
1:23
of seven different organizations touching that
1:27
single trade. Wait, seven minimum? Minimum. Seven
1:30
distinct, completely invisible entities working
1:33
in fractions of a second. I mean, they are validating
1:37
data, taking tiny cuts of your capital, and managing
1:40
just immense amounts of systemic risk, all while
1:42
you're still looking at that nice green check
1:45
mark on your... That is wild. And today we are
1:48
deliberately skipping the confusing financial
1:50
jargon. We want to look at this system as it
1:53
practically functions. The goal is for you to
1:56
understand exactly who you are handing your money
1:58
to and how the machine actually processes it.
2:00
Yeah, and to really grasp how the machine works,
2:02
we have to start by looking at who is actually
2:05
playing the game. Before we can trace the pipes
2:07
and the wires, we need to identify the players
2:10
supplying the capital. Broadly speaking, there
2:12
are two main groups. On one side, you have retail
2:16
investors. Which is you the listener, right?
2:18
Sitting on the couch. Exactly. Individuals trading
2:21
their own personal wealth. Which, I mean... might
2:24
seem like small amounts individually, but when
2:26
you aggregate it all together, retail investors
2:29
form this enormous pool of liquidity in the market.
2:33
They absolutely do. But on the other side of
2:36
the ledger, you have the institutional investors.
2:39
These are the colossal entities, the insurance
2:41
companies, the mutual fund managers, sovereign
2:44
wealth funds, and importantly in Canada, the
2:47
public pension plans. Right, and our sources
2:49
actually point at something incredibly unique
2:50
about those Canadian pension plans. Because in
2:53
many parts of the world, a pension fund will
2:55
just collect the retirement money and farm it
2:58
out to external hedge funds or asset managers
3:00
to do the actual investing. Yeah, they outsource
3:03
it. But in Canada, these massive public pension
3:06
funds are highly sophisticated on a global scale.
3:09
They often run the money directly. I mean, they
3:11
have entire floors of analysts building proprietary
3:15
economic models and executing the trades themselves.
3:18
And what's fascinating here is the stark asymmetry
3:21
of that relationship. When you, the retail investor,
3:24
tap that buy button, you are very often trading
3:27
directly against one of these massive institutions.
3:30
Wow. Yeah, you are sitting across. the virtual
3:33
table from an entity with vastly superior information,
3:38
deeply complex algorithms, and microsecond execution
3:41
speed. I mean, they have dedicated fiber optic
3:44
lines running straight into the exchanges. It's
3:46
basically the financial equivalent of, like,
3:49
deciding you want to play a casual game of pickup
3:51
basketball at the local park. Right. You step
3:53
onto the court in your sneakers, and suddenly
3:55
you realize you're guarding an NBA professional.
3:57
And they brought an entire team of data analysts
3:59
to chart your every move. The playing field is
4:02
just wildly uneven. It is uneven, but the synthesis
4:05
of this data points to a very important takeaway.
4:08
You shouldn't be discouraged by that asymmetry.
4:10
OK, that's reassuring. The lesson isn't that
4:12
you can't win. The lesson is that you must understand
4:14
your position in the ecosystem. You can't try
4:17
to outsmart an institutional algorithm at a game
4:20
of microsecond speed. Right. Or short -term price
4:23
arbitrage. Right. You just get crushed. Exactly.
4:26
You survive by playing an entirely different
4:28
game, usually a much longer -term strategy based
4:30
on fundamentals rather than speed. OK. So we
4:33
have the retail players and the institutional
4:35
players. But standing directly between them are
4:39
the intermediaries, the investment dealers. And
4:42
these firms are doing two very distinct jobs,
4:45
often under the exact same rules. Yeah, this
4:47
is key. On one side of the building, they are
4:50
handling underwriting. So they help a company
4:53
create and sell brand new shares to the public
4:55
for the first time. This is the primary market.
4:58
And then on the other side of the building, they
5:00
act as a brokerage. They execute trades for clients
5:03
who are buying and selling shares that already
5:04
exist. That's the secondary market. And the only
5:08
thing separating those two incredibly different
5:10
functions creating the product and helping clients
5:13
trade the product are just internal compliance
5:15
walls. And we also have to gently mention the
5:17
human interface standing at the front door of
5:20
those brokerages, which are the advisors. Yes.
5:23
Depending on how your specific advisor is legally
5:25
registered, their power over your money varies
5:29
significantly. Some are strictly limited to just
5:33
suggesting prepackaged mutual funds. Others can
5:36
trade individual stocks. And some carry discretionary
5:39
power, meaning they can analyze the market and
5:42
execute trades on your behalf without even calling
5:44
you to ask permission first. So now we have the
5:47
cast of characters. We know who is supplying
5:49
the money and who is facilitating the trades.
5:52
The next logical question is the mechanics. Once
5:54
you actually place that trade, where does your
5:56
order physically go? Right. Let's really trace
5:59
the journey of your 100 shares. microsecond by
6:02
microsecond, and uncover those seven invisible
6:04
roommates living inside your screen tap. Let's
6:06
do it. The millisecond your thumb leaves the
6:09
screen. The data hits your broker's servers.
6:12
This is the validation phase. The brokerage is
6:15
basically acting as the first gatekeeper. Before
6:18
they ever send your order out to the wider market,
6:21
their systems are checking to ensure you actually
6:24
have the cash in your account to cover the purchase.
6:27
Which makes sense. Yeah, and they're also checking
6:29
that the order doesn't breach any of your personal
6:31
margin limits or trading restrictions. So if
6:34
you miscalculated your buying power, the journey
6:37
just ends right there. The door slams shut. But
6:41
assuming you have the funds, your broker now
6:43
has a validated order. but they can't just throw
6:46
it up into the air. They have to decide exactly
6:48
where to send it. This is the routing phase.
6:50
And routing is far more complex than people realize
6:52
because there isn't just one single monolithic
6:55
stock market in Canada. Wait, really? I think
6:58
most people assume it's just the TSX and that's
7:00
it. No, there are multiple trading venues. You
7:02
have public exchanges and you also have alternative
7:05
trading systems, which are sometimes called dark
7:07
pools. And your broker is legally obligated to
7:11
seek what is called best execution. Which requires
7:14
a pretty complicated algorithm, right? Because
7:16
they aren't just looking for the absolute lowest
7:18
price on a given exchange. Right. They have to
7:20
balance the price of the stock against the speed
7:22
of the venue. the likelihood that the venue actually
7:25
has enough shares to fill your entire order,
7:27
and the overall cost to complete the trade. Precisely.
7:31
The broker's routing engine scans all these fragmented
7:34
venues in milliseconds, makes a mathematical
7:37
judgment call, and fires your order to a specific
7:41
marketplace or exchange, like, say, the Toronto
7:44
Stock Exchange. This is where the actual matchmaking
7:47
happens. Your desire to buy those 100 shares
7:50
finally meets a stranger's desire to sell them.
7:53
The exchange's matching engine pairs the two
7:56
of you up. And this is the exact moment where
7:59
human intuition completely misreads the financial
8:01
system. Oh, absolutely. Because instinct tells
8:04
you that once the buyer meets the seller, The
8:06
trade is done, you hand over the cash, they hand
8:08
over the shares, but that is not how it works
8:11
at all. Not even close. The trade is agreed upon,
8:14
sure, but it is far from complete because you
8:16
aren't actually transacting with that stranger.
8:18
Right. As soon as the matching engine pairs you
8:21
up, a fourth entity called a clearing agency
8:24
steps directly into the middle of the transaction.
8:27
In Canada, this is typically CDS, the Canadian
8:30
Depository for Securities. OK, let's unpack this.
8:33
Or actually, I should say, let's take a closer
8:35
look at this. Because the idea of a middleman
8:38
forcefully inserting themselves between two willing
8:41
parties seems incredibly inefficient. It does
8:43
seem that way. If the exchange just found a seller
8:46
for my buy order. Why can't the cash and the
8:49
shares just move directly between our two accounts?
8:51
Well, if we connect this to the bigger picture,
8:53
you'll see why the clearing agency is arguably
8:55
the unsung hero of the modern economy. They exist
8:59
entirely to eliminate counterparty risk. OK.
9:02
Imagine you did trade directly with that stranger.
9:04
You agree on a price of 10 a .m. But before the
9:07
actual cash and shares are transferred and settled
9:09
a day later, that stranger goes completely bankrupt
9:12
or their brokerage collapses. Oh, wow. I would
9:15
be left completely exposed, I wouldn't get my
9:18
shares, and my money might be tied up in their
9:20
bankruptcy proceedings. Exactly. It would cause
9:22
a massive chain reaction of failures across the
9:25
whole system. So the clearing agency acts as
9:29
a systemic shock absorber. The moment your trade
9:32
is matched, the clearing agency legally becomes
9:35
the buyer to every single seller and the seller
9:38
to every single buyer. They sever the link between
9:41
you and the stranger. That's fascinating. So
9:43
if that stranger goes bankrupt at two o 'clock
9:45
in the afternoon, it is no longer your problem.
9:48
The clearing agency absorbs the blast and guarantees
9:51
that you still get your shares. That is a brilliant
9:53
mechanism. They're essentially a financial firewall
9:56
shielding every investor from the chaos of the
9:58
outside world. So the risk is neutralized. The
10:02
trade is cleared. Now the actual ownership needs
10:04
to change hands, which brings us to the fifth
10:06
entity, the depository. Right. The depository
10:10
is where the master books of who owns what are
10:13
officially updated. And this introduces a concept
10:16
that surprises almost every retail investor when
10:18
they first learn about it. When you buy a stock,
10:21
you naturally assume those shares are officially
10:24
registered under your legal name. Right. I paid
10:27
for them. My app says I own them. So my name
10:29
should be on the stock certificate. But our sources
10:32
detail that they're actually held in something
10:34
called street name, meaning I don't actually
10:37
hold my own shares. You hold them beneficially,
10:40
but not directly. On the master record at the
10:43
depository, the registered holder is a nominee.
10:47
Your broker's internal database says the position
10:49
belongs to you, but the overarching official
10:52
record says it belongs to the broker. You know,
10:55
when I first read that, my immediate reaction
10:57
was to find it incredibly sketchy. Like, why
11:00
would my broker hold my property in their name?
11:02
Right. It feels wrong. But the deeper I looked
11:04
at the mechanics, the more it made sense. I came
11:07
up with an analogy to try and explain the logic
11:09
here. Imagine a massive, highly exclusive coat
11:12
check at a winter gala. Okay, I'm listening.
11:15
If every single time a guest bought or sold a
11:18
coat to another guest, the staff had to physically
11:22
walk into the back room, pull a heavy winter
11:25
coat off the rack, carry it across the room,
11:28
hand it to the new owner, and then stitch their
11:30
name into the silk lining. Oh, man. The line
11:34
would take literal weeks to move. the sheer physical
11:37
friction would just paralyze the coat check.
11:39
It would be entirely unscalable. Right. So to
11:42
solve this, the coat check staff just leave all
11:44
the heavy coats exactly where they are in the
11:46
physical racks. They never move them. Instead,
11:48
they just swap the little paper claim tags behind
11:51
the desk to keep track of who owns what. That's
11:53
a great way to visualize it. So street name is
11:55
just the financial equivalent of moving those
11:57
paper tags. By keeping all the shares registered
12:00
under the brokers name at the depository, the
12:03
system doesn't have to rewrite the official corporate
12:05
registry every time you tap buy or sell. They
12:07
just shuffle digital tags behind the scenes.
12:10
It's the only way millions of trades can settle
12:12
in a single day. That is exactly the mechanism.
12:14
The depository handles the digital tags. And
12:17
because these are essentially just ledger entries
12:19
representing enormous value, someone has to secure
12:22
the underlying assets. Right. This requires a
12:25
sixth entity, which is the custodian. The custodian
12:28
is the fortress that physically or digitally
12:31
safeguards the actual assets, the coats on the
12:33
rack, to borrow your metaphor. And finally, sweeping
12:36
their flashlight over this entire convoluted
12:38
process, you have the seventh entity. The regulators.
12:42
Yes. In Canada, this means the Provincial Securities
12:44
Commissions alongside C .I .R .O. And C .I .R
12:48
.O. is the unified self -regulatory organization
12:50
that watches over investment dealers and mutual
12:53
fund dealers. Right. Like, you know, they actually
12:55
merged IROC and the MFDA back in 2023 to create
12:58
C .I .R .O. Right. That was a huge consolidation.
13:01
Yeah. And they're constantly surveilling this
13:03
microsecond activity, looking for market manipulation,
13:05
insider trading, or algorithmic anomalies. So
13:08
just think about it. A single tap on your phone
13:10
mobilizes a brokerage, a routing algorithm, an
13:13
exchange, a clearing agency, a depository, a
13:16
custodian, and a regulatory body. All seven of
13:20
these organizations are doing incredibly heavy
13:22
complex lifting to ensure your trade is fast
13:25
and secure. But they are a workforce, and a workforce
13:29
does not operate for free. Which leads us directly
13:33
into the invisible invoice. We need to talk about
13:35
the real cost of trading. Because when you look
13:37
at your brokerage account, the pricing seems
13:39
incredibly straightforward. Your broker might
13:42
charge a flat commission of $10 a trade. Or,
13:45
increasingly common these days, they aggressively
13:48
advertise zero commission trading. Yeah, but
13:51
the commission is simply the visible tip of the
13:53
iceberg. It's the only fee that is are cleanly
13:56
itemized on your receipt. The rest of the costs
13:59
to pay those seven organizations are deeply structural.
14:02
They're baked directly into the plumbing of the
14:04
transaction itself. Here's where it gets really
14:06
fascinating because the marketing around zero
14:08
commission is essentially a psychological trick.
14:11
It really is. It creates this mental framework
14:13
where you feel like you're utilizing this massive
14:16
global infrastructure for free. But there's a
14:19
hidden toll booth built right into the highway
14:21
and it's called the bid ask spread. To understand
14:24
the spread, you have to understand why it exists.
14:27
When you want to buy a stock immediately, you
14:28
pay the ask price. But if you were to turn around
14:31
the very next second and sell that exact same
14:33
stock, you would receive the bid price, which
14:35
is always slightly lower. Right. That tiny mathematical
14:39
gap between the buy price and the sell price
14:42
is the spread. It exists because the market makers,
14:47
the entities providing the shares, are taking
14:49
on inventory risk. If they hold the stock to
14:52
facilitate your trade and the market suddenly
14:54
crashes, they lose money. So the spread is their
14:57
compensation for taking on that risk. So if the
15:00
ask is $20. and the bid is $19 .95, that five
15:04
cent difference just vanishes from your capital
15:06
the moment the trade executes because of the
15:08
market makers and the dealers. But it never shows
15:11
up as a negative line item on your monthly statement.
15:13
It's just silently absorbed. And then you combine
15:16
that spread with exchange fees, clearing fees,
15:19
and the ongoing management fees of mutual funds
15:21
or ETFs running quietly in the background year
15:24
after year. And if we're talking about Canadian
15:26
investors specifically, we must highlight the
15:29
largest stealthiest fee of all, which is foreign
15:33
exchange or FX conversion. Well, this is a big
15:35
one. Huge. If you're a Canadian buying an American
15:38
stock, your broker has to convert your Canadian
15:41
dollars to U .S. dollars to execute the purchase.
15:44
And they don't just give you the pure mathematical
15:46
spot rate you see on the news. No, not at all.
15:49
They build a margin directly into that exchange
15:52
rate. If the true conversion rate is 1 .30, your
15:56
broker might charge you 1 .32. On a $10 ,000
16:00
trade, that tiny margin translates into a massive
16:03
hidden fee. Oh, wow. So they just bake a margin
16:06
right into the exchange rate. Exactly. And again,
16:09
it rarely appears as a clean fee on your statement.
16:11
It's just baked into the math of the final price.
16:14
It can easily be the most expensive part of your
16:16
entire investing journey, and most people never
16:18
even calculate it. That's wild. But it is vital
16:21
to emphasize, none of these structural fees are
16:23
enhanced. malicious. The spread, the FX margins,
16:27
the clearing fees they pay for a miraculous level
16:29
of global liquidity and security, the danger
16:32
isn't the fees themselves. Right, the danger
16:34
is human psychology. Because if you don't realize
16:37
you're paying these structural costs because
16:38
they're invisible, you can't accurately measure
16:41
your true returns. Precisely. If you're paying
16:44
for the plumbing without knowing it, your internal
16:47
calculus of how your wealth is growing will always
16:49
be artificially high. So if Canadian investors
16:53
are paying all these interconnected fees for
16:55
all these different services, the natural question
16:57
is, who actually owns the toll booths? Who is
17:01
collecting the revenue from the brokerage, the
17:03
routing, the custody, and the mutual funds? In
17:06
Canada, the answer is uniquely concentrated.
17:09
It is. The structure of the Canadian financial
17:11
system is deeply integrated and it stands in
17:14
very sharp contrast to the historical model of
17:16
its neighbor to the South. The U .S. Yes, the
17:19
United States. For decades, the U .S. maintained
17:21
a heavily fragmented system. They had specific
17:24
legislation designed to strictly separate commercial
17:27
banking, meaning your checking accounts and mortgages
17:29
from investment banking, which handles stocks,
17:32
bonds and underwriting. But Canada evolved in
17:34
the exact opposite direction. We moved toward
17:37
a fully integrated bank. owned model. The practical
17:41
reality of this is that a single massive Canadian
17:43
bank could hold your everyday checking account.
17:47
That same bank could own the brokerage platform
17:50
you use to make trades. They could be the entity
17:52
manufacturing the mutual funds you're buying
17:54
and they could directly employ the financial
17:56
advisor who is recommending that you buy it.
17:59
And this raises a really important question regarding
18:01
systemic risk and benefit, because that level
18:04
of concentration brings a massive, undeniable
18:07
advantage to the Canadian economy, which is stability.
18:10
When you consolidate that much capital, retail
18:13
deposits and underwriting operations under the
18:15
umbrella of a few heavily regulated national
18:17
banks, you build an economic fortress. Their
18:20
massive retail deposit base stabilizes their
18:22
riskier investment arms. This integrated structure
18:26
is a major reason why Canada weathered the devastating
18:28
2008 global financial crisis with far less trauma
18:32
than countries with heavily fragmented shadow
18:34
banking systems. I mean, I understand the fortress
18:37
argument. It kept the system from collapsing.
18:39
But logically, it sounds exactly like going to
18:41
a doctor who diagnoses your illness, writes you
18:44
a prescription, happens to own the pharmacy when
18:46
you fill the prescription, and also manufactures
18:49
the exact pills you're swallowing. It does. How
18:51
does a regulator look at an integrated bank doing
18:54
all of those things and not see a massive structural
18:58
conflict of interest? Because they do see it.
19:00
The honest reality regulators have arrived at
19:03
is that the conflict of interest cannot be eliminated
19:05
within an integrated model. It's structurally
19:08
baked in. Oh, I see. Therefore, the goal is an
19:12
elimination but strict management. They manage
19:14
it through heavy regulatory oversight. rigid
19:17
compliance walls between departments, and extensive
19:20
client disclosure requirements. So they literally
19:23
have to hand you a document explaining the conflict.
19:25
Exactly. Zooming out, what you're looking at
19:28
is a grand societal trade -off. As a nation,
19:31
Canada fundamentally traded away the fierce cutthroat
19:34
competition that drives down costs in highly
19:37
fragmented markets. In exchange for slightly
19:40
higher fees and concentrated power, Canadians
19:42
bought bulletproof systemic stability. We bought
19:45
peace of mind. But because our system is so concentrated,
19:49
and because those invisible fees can aggressively
19:52
eat into long -term returns, modern investors
19:55
are constantly looking for loopholes, right?
19:57
Yeah, always. They try to bypass the human elements
20:00
of the system to save money. But when you automate
20:03
the process and remove the humans, the nature
20:06
of your risk changes entirely. The clearest example
20:09
of this evolution is the explosion of discount
20:11
brokerages. These are the sleek apps offering
20:14
those zero commission trades we talked about.
20:16
They're incredibly democratic, providing market
20:18
access to millions of people who were previously
20:21
priced out. But to make the service cheap, they
20:23
had to strip away the human advisor layer. Which
20:26
means we now have millions of people executing
20:28
highly complex financial trades with absolutely
20:31
no one checking their logic. If a 22 year old
20:33
decides to bet their entire net worth on a highly
20:36
volatile leverage tech ETF. There's no advisor
20:40
gently tapping them on the shoulder to ask if
20:43
that actually aligns with their risk tolerance.
20:45
And that is a critical distinction in market
20:47
structure. An advisor is legally bound by rules
20:50
regarding suitability. They have a professional
20:53
duty to ensure the investments fit your financial
20:55
profile. But when you bypass them to save on
20:59
fees, you are entirely on your own. You're navigating
21:01
a system filled with counterparties rather than
21:04
fiduciaries. So what does this all mean? The
21:07
term counterparty sounds a bit adversarial, almost
21:10
like an enemy. But we need to clarify what it
21:12
actually means mechanically. Good point. If you
21:15
place a trade on one of these discount platforms
21:17
and a dealer is trading as a principal, they're
21:20
acting as your counterparty. Structurally, their
21:23
financial interest is the exact opposite of yours
21:25
by design. If you were looking to buy a stock
21:28
at the lowest possible price, they're selling
21:30
it to you from their own inventory and they want
21:32
the highest possible price. Exactly. It's a zero
21:35
-sum mechanic in that specific microsecond. But
21:38
it's crucial to remember that the system isn't
21:40
full of malicious actors sitting in dark rooms
21:43
plotting to steal your wealth. It is simply a
21:45
highly efficient machine. The counterparty is
21:48
taking the other side of your trade to provide
21:50
liquidity to the market and they expect to be
21:53
financially compensated for absorbing that risk.
21:56
Which explains the existence of high -frequency
21:58
trading. These firms deploy supercomputers to
22:01
execute thousands of trades in fractions of a
22:03
second, just to capture tiny fractions of a cent
22:05
on the bid -ask spread before the prices update.
22:08
It's a controversial part of modern plumbing,
22:10
primarily because it highlights the extreme technological
22:13
arms race. But for you, the listener sitting
22:16
at home planning to buy and hold shares of a
22:18
solid company for the next 20 years to fund your
22:21
retirement. The microsecond wars of high -frequency
22:24
trading are almost entirely irrelevant to your
22:27
long -term compounding. It's noise. And this
22:30
really ties our entire deep dive together today.
22:33
The true power. for modern investors is simply
22:36
awareness. You are vastly empowered just by knowing
22:39
that the financial market isn't a single monolithic
22:43
entity looking out for your best interests. It's
22:45
a complex room filled with competing algorithms,
22:48
structural invisible costs, and vastly different
22:51
legal duties. Let's softly recap this journey
22:54
we've taken today. What feels like a simple magical
22:57
tap on your phone screen to buy a stock actually
23:00
activates a sprawling ecosystem. It requires
23:02
the coordination of brokerages, routing engines,
23:05
exchanges, clearing agencies, and custodians.
23:08
It triggers a cascade of invisible fees from
23:11
the bid -ask spread to foreign exchange margins.
23:13
And in Canada, this entire machine relies on
23:16
a deeply integrated bank -owned structure that
23:18
chose to prioritize national stability over aggressive
23:21
price competition. It is a brilliantly designed,
23:24
incredibly resilient machine once you learn how
23:26
to see the gears turning. But understanding the
23:28
current gears always leads to questioning the
23:30
future. Oh, for sure. I want to leave you with
23:32
the final thought to mull over. We just spent
23:34
this time detailing the seven invisible organizations
23:37
required to clear, settle, and secure a single
23:40
trade. But as technologies like blockchain and
23:44
distributed ledgers continue to advance, their
23:46
core technological promise is instant, trustless,
23:50
peer -to -peer settlement. Removing the middlemen
23:52
entirely. Precisely. If two parties can instantly
23:55
verify a transaction on a decentralized ledger,
23:58
will this new technology eventually render those
24:01
seven invisible organizations obsolete? And if
24:04
so, will the giant Canadian banking oligopoly
24:08
allow themselves to be disrupted by this new
24:10
efficiency, or will they leverage their immense
24:12
capital to simply buy the technology and maintain
24:15
their iron grip on the room? That is an absolutely
24:18
fascinating question to end on. Because the next
24:20
time you're sitting on your couch holding your
24:21
phone and you go to gently tap that green buy
24:23
button, you're never going to look at the simplicity
24:26
of that screen the same way again. Thank you
24:29
so much for joining us on this deep dive. Keep
24:31
questioning the invisible systems around you.